Team:TU Darmstadt/Collaborations
The Oxiteers
Wastewater pollution is a big problem throughout the world. In Germany this becomes visible by increasingly high concentrations of diclofenac. This year three German iGEM teams, namely Kaiserslautern, Stuttgart, and Darmstadt, are tackling this problem. As we all use laccases for this purpose in all our projects we decided to team up. We exchanged knowledge, shared experts, held a collaborative livestream, and created an overview page for future iGEM teams in wastewater treatment. Thereby, our collaboration grew into a partnership over the course of this year. Our partnership page can be found here.
Wastewater Europe
As mentioned above wastewater pollution is a big problem in the world. Therefore, we decided to collaborate with teams all across Europe. We held regular meetings with teams working on wastewater treatment around Europe discussing our projects, possible weak points and exchanged literature. Especially knowledge on assays and laboratory methods. This collaboration includes the iGEM teams from Brno Czech Republic, Kaiserslautern, Stuttgart, Aalto-Helsinki and UZurich. Gaining insights into potentially tricky experiments and new assays for laccase characterization helped us tremendously in our project design even though we were not able to access the lab this year. Also, it helped our teams to track our progress.
iJET
iGEM is a competition that thrives on the fact that intercultural teams network with each other. But what happens when social contact is suddenly restricted and you can no longer meet each other in person?
With our iJET-Collaboration we want to actively ensure that teams from all over the world create a project together. Therefore, we sat down with the iGEM-Team Aachen and together we developed a project that unites us all and brings us closer to our common goal. We got inspiration from Duesseldorfs amazing collaboration idea with postcards getting sent all over the world and wanted to perform something even more symbolic.
We promoted our idea via our instagram @igem_darmstadt and the iGEM HQ and received a lot of positive feedback. 29 teams from 4 continents took part and sent us short video sequences, which we combined into a collaborative video. The cut was realized by a team consisting of people from Aachen and Darmstadt. The video was published on our social media platforms and can also be found here on our Wiki or on Team Aachen’s wiki. After many hours of work, we managed to put together a project that links us together from all over the world. Together we have contributed to connect the iGEM community even stronger.
With our iJET-Collaboration we want to actively ensure that teams from all over the world create a project together. Therefore, we sat down with the iGEM-Team Aachen and together we developed a project that unites us all and brings us closer to our common goal. We got inspiration from Duesseldorfs amazing collaboration idea with postcards getting sent all over the world and wanted to perform something even more symbolic.
We promoted our idea via our instagram @igem_darmstadt and the iGEM HQ and received a lot of positive feedback. 29 teams from 4 continents took part and sent us short video sequences, which we combined into a collaborative video. The cut was realized by a team consisting of people from Aachen and Darmstadt. The video was published on our social media platforms and can also be found here on our Wiki or on Team Aachen’s wiki. After many hours of work, we managed to put together a project that links us together from all over the world. Together we have contributed to connect the iGEM community even stronger.
The world of Synbio (iGEM TU Delft)
This year it was very hard to get in contact with each other because of the COVID-19 pandemic. That is why it is even more inspiring that so many new ways have been found for connecting teams all over the world. One very good idea to do so and to share our great projects with the world, came from the iGEM Team of the Delft University of Technology. They asked us and many other teams to send a short video where we state the problem we want to solve this year and how we plan to do so. These short videos were collected and joined to create one big video which was shared on social media. Thereby, everyone could see the interesting projects the iGEM community is doing this year and what could be achieved with synthetic biology. Thank you Delft for organizing this collaboration and making this amazing video. We really enjoyed to participate.
HannDa Biofilm Model
As we were both interested in modeling the early formations of a biofilm we got in contact with the team Hannover. The team has outstanding programming experience and we stand out in biological aspects. Thus, we combined our knowledge to create a software tool, which allows us to simulate different bacteria types. Team Hannover did major parts in documenting our software and we played a key role in plotting our results to verify our results. Last but not least, we ran the simulation on one of our team member's private server. This greatly reduced the simulation time, as team Hannover implemented a multi-processing function and the server had 32 virtual cores. The results of our collaboration can be found here.
Post Card Collaboration (iGEM Duesseldorf)
The iGEM community consists of amazing people around the world, all working on many interesting projects. Since we were not able to meet in person, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to find other options to get to know each other and to communicate our projects. Therefore, the postcard collaboration with Duesseldorf was a very good opportunity to do so. We have joined this collaboration for several years now, each year creating different postcard designs. This year it was more important than ever to get this great opportunity to connect with other teams and learn about their projects.
The team from Duesseldorf collects postcards from every team and afterwards sends one from each team to the teams participating. As every year it was fun to design our postcard and we thank you for all your work and for continuing the tradition of this collaboration every year.
The team from Duesseldorf collects postcards from every team and afterwards sends one from each team to the teams participating. As every year it was fun to design our postcard and we thank you for all your work and for continuing the tradition of this collaboration every year.
Meetups
All meetups were affected this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, some meetups were organized online. This was a very new experience and the organization must have been a big challenge. Therefore, we want to thank iGEM Headquarters and iGEM Marburg for organizing the Opening Weekend Festival, Global Meetup and the German Meetup. Participation in all these meetups has been a great experience and fun.
We enjoyed the meetups and are really grateful for the great alternative to the previously known meetups. As usually we got the opportunity to meet other teams and get to know their projects. Furthermore, the online poster sessions and the videos for the German meetup were a good opportunity to practice for the giant jamboree. It also helped to receive feedback from other teams. We enjoyed expert talks and also got inspiration on how to deal with the changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the meetups were very helpful and we would like to thank everyone who was involved in making the meetups possible.
We enjoyed the meetups and are really grateful for the great alternative to the previously known meetups. As usually we got the opportunity to meet other teams and get to know their projects. Furthermore, the online poster sessions and the videos for the German meetup were a good opportunity to practice for the giant jamboree. It also helped to receive feedback from other teams. We enjoyed expert talks and also got inspiration on how to deal with the changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the meetups were very helpful and we would like to thank everyone who was involved in making the meetups possible.
Highlight the sustainable development impact
This year iGEM teams were encouraged to contribute to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. As we are all responsible scientists we were eager to help meeting the SDGs with our work. In oder to show how important science and synthetic biology is to achieve the SDGs, the iGEM team of Cayetano Heredia Peruvian University came up with a good collaboration idea.
They put together a presentation containing the work of the iGEM community to show how each of us contributes to meet the SDGs. Therefore, every team designed a small infographic with a template provided by iGEM UPCH Peru revolving around their project and the sustainable development goals they address with it. Additionally, this contribute to the movement #SinCienciaNohayFuturo (#NoScienceNoFuture) which began in Spanish-speaking countries to emphasize the need of science for the social development.
We think this is an excellent idea to highlight our efforts and to share them with others. Thank you iGEM UPCH Peru for having this amazing collaboration with us.